


Crushing Velvet

by jetblackmirror (orphan_account)



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-04
Updated: 2007-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-16 02:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/jetblackmirror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dissection of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crushing Velvet

**Author's Note:**

> Makes heavy reference to [this](http://community.livejournal.com/chemicalromance/2207743.html) little article, and also makes small references to other assorted interviews.

"When love beckons to you follow him,  
Though his ways are hard and steep.  
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,  
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.  
And when he speaks to you believe in him,  
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.  
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.  
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning."  
\- The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

 

Love was never simple is what Gerard has come to believe, though he’s pretty sure some noteworthy philosopher or poet or madman came to this conclusion long before him. But it’s not entirely true, not really. In fact, when Gerard lists all the things he loves he finds them all to be very simple. Basic. Little joys of life that just make him feel good when he reflects on them.

The smell of a new set of Prismacolor markers, not even the markers themselves, just that fresh feeling he gets when he first opens them, moves his nose close and breathes in. Frank likes to roll his eyes when he does that, muttering something about artist quirks. Gerard doesn’t comment on how he’s caught the guitarist doing the same whenever he gets a new vinyl.

The feel of paper. Any kind of paper. The smooth almost satin surface of printer pages, the rough texture of his sketchbook. Sometimes he’ll pick up a pad of construction paper while he’s at Wal-Mart, even when he already has three unused ones sitting under his bunk, just to flip through the pages, let the violent rainbow flow through his fingers.

The smell of rain, especially in the woods, the mist rising like steam from a kettle off the dead leaves carpeting the earth. There’s also something uniquely special about rain in a parking lot, cooling the tar after a hot day, the acrid scent rising from the asphalt and making him lightheaded. Like he felt when he took his first shaky, sputtering drag off a cigarette.

Smoke too. He loves it, comforting wood smoke drifting off a campfire or fireplace, heavy cigarette smoke filling the small basements of indie shows, the sulfury scent of a freshly struck match. He can even still find some hint of enjoyment in catching a faint sniff of pot smoke, a bittersweet smile playing over his lips. Remembrance and the tickle of fear.

Really it’s not so much love that’s never simple, but relationships. Somehow, even an easy thing like loving can get so complicated when people are involved. Taking the pure, titanium white of it and mixing in sienna, ultramarine, crimson; until all you’re left with is a dreadful and wholly unusable greyish brown.

There’s a quiet stillness to the room, the perfect pallet for Gerard’s thoughts to swirl and mix, painting intricacies over the imperfect surface of his mind. He’s sprawled, taking up most of the small, battered couch, one foot resting on the floor, knee bent at a lazy angle. The other foot is pressed flush against the wall to the side of the couch, his grass stained Converse leaving faint prints along the faux wood finish. That knee is bent too, and every so often he reflects on the angle of the bend, adjusting it this way and that. Thirty Five degrees. One seventy degrees. An almost prefect right angle.

“Something on your mind?”

The voice breaks his thoughts, pieces scattering. Down feathers in a sea breeze. It’s almost loud, his ears having grown accustomed to the comfortable silence. There’s a certain gentleness to it, though, and Gerard doesn’t flinch at the sound. He tilts his head back, gazing invertedly at the man whose thigh makes the best pillow Gerard’s nearly-thirty year old head has ever known. He blinks up at cornflower eyes, giving the question a vaguely curious hum. He thinks Bob’s beard looks like steel wool spun from gold.

“You’ve been staring at your knee for the better part of an hour.”

Gerard gives another blink, this one lazy and slow, almost as if his eyelids were protesting the fluid motion. Reluctantly he looks back down, at the pale bony lump protruding from the tear in his faded jeans, like some bizarre form of alien birth, stilled halfway through the delivery process.

“Have I really?”

There’s a chuckle above him, and Gerard can feel it flowing like a current through his freshly blackened hair, trickling down his spine to pool in his stomach, just below his navel where his shirt parts from a missing button. His hand moves to rest over his chest, right where another wayward button should be. He loves this shirt too, somewhere between paper and smoke. He’s worn this shirt in the rain, when walking through London. Sometimes he can still smell the city in the worn threads.

Europe had been hard for him, that last time they went. He was still unaccustomed to being lonely. Not alone, he was never really alone. Not even in the dead of four am, when he would leave the hotel and just walk and think. He still had people – friends, _brothers_ – to come back to. Who would toss towels at his rain soaked hair. He would try to pretend he didn’t see the worried glances the guitarists exchanged as he ducked into another unfamiliar bathroom.

No, he was never alone. Just always lonely. It was hard being freshly single while your brother and best friend spent hours each night on the phone, cooing and talking of weddings and houses and children.

Gerard meant it when he said he wanted to buy a house for his birthday. Not an apartment like Mikey and Alicia share. Not some New York City job where the buzz of humanity is louder than his own thoughts. Maybe he’ll get a cabin just this side of nowhere, with a little studio in one room; he could paint all day and write through the sunrise. He’d learn to chop his own firewood and tend a garden, his fingers finally growing calluses that ache with the satisfaction of creating something solid. Something concrete.

And maybe he’ll have someone to share the solidity with. Someone who’ll make him happy like he’s never been before, just by the simple act of sharing the same air in a room. Someone who won’t mind when he forgets to do the laundry, or take the trash out. Someone who will understand his need for privacy, who won’t give him that tired, worried look when he wanders in at five am, rain water soaked through to the marrow. The look that speaks more clearly than any words. Is he falling again? Is he breaking again? Do I need to pick up the pieces _again_?

“You’re doing it again.”

Gerard jumps at Bob’s voice this time, the words paralleling his wandering thoughts. The television’s been on, for how long he’s not entirely sure. He doesn’t recall either himself or his surrogate pillow reaching for the remote. It’s turned down low, barely a quiet hum of sound. Pictures flashing colors over his pale arms. Sometimes he almost wishes he had a bit more color to him. Maybe he’d feel more like a real person. Maybe his thoughts would overtake him less.

“Sorry.”

He turns his face away from himself, glancing sidelong at the television; letting his thoughts melt away as beautiful people living beautiful lives dance beautiful dances. He wonders if anyone truly thinks him beautiful. If anyone looks at him like he does these beings in their home of glass and light. Maybe someone out there looks at him on stage, trolling though fan made videos on YouTube, and thinks that he’s blessed. Special. That the day to day struggle of simply living to take your next breath doesn’t affect him. A sparkling, golden god; savior of the broken clad in black and imitation misery.

There’s another warm chuckle above him, and a careful hand slides into his hair. Fingers threading, calloused yet still so amazingly soft as they glide over his scalp. Gerard wants to close his eyes at the tenderness of it all, but he can’t tear his gaze away from the plastic dancers. Only allowing his eyelids to close in quick, widely spaced blinks. He wonders when his eyes will turn to raisins.

“You’re quiet today.”

Gerard gives the vaguest excuse for a shrug he can manage, one shoulder simply rising to lightly brush Bob’s hip. A supermodel cop on the television bursts into a sprint, her blonde hair fanning out behind her, rounded hips swaying seductively and grapefruit breasts bouncing beneath her too tight uniform. He slides his hand inside his shirt where the button should be, fingers trailing lightly over his breastbone. He can’t even feel his own heartbeat.

“Do you want to get married?”

The fingers in his hair close over a snarl and give a light tug. Gerard winces, though it doesn’t hurt at all, the reaction simply one of those insignificant things left over from childhood. Someone pulls on your hair and you flinch in surprise or pain. Cause. Effect. Repeat cycle. A programmed zombie. Meaningless actions that pass for living.

“Is that a proposal?”

The voice is light, teasing. Gerard hopes that he isn’t imagining that tiny note of underlying hope he feels from them. It’s silly, really. Someone who doesn’t even truly believe in love hoping that his words had been misunderstood. The lightest hint of a sigh passes through Gerard’s lips. His head moves slightly side to side against Bob’s thigh.

“An outsider’s inquiry.”

Bob’s hand begins moving again, digits untangling the knot with surprising care. He runs his fringers through the spot after, combing his hair smooth. The pads of his index and ring kneading lightly at the abused spot on Gerard’s scalp. The singer feels that floating, almost swimming feeling flow through him. Like when he’s exhausted in his bunk after a show, just about to drift off to sleep. Lighter than a feather, lighter than air. Sometimes he still wishes he could evaporate.

“I guess. Seems a bit of a hassle though.”

The plastic supermodel cop continues running, perfect painted lips pursing before she shouts words that Gerard can’t hear. Gun raised high as she looses a bullet into the night air, as if to shoot the very stars above. Sex and violence. The most dysfunctional marriage ever conceived. Like Adam and Eve, one born from the other, destroying paradise until both lay naked and ashamed.

He catches the scent of smoke in the air. Bob’s lit a cigarette, and Gerard can’t even figure out when. No recollection of a match striking. No fading memory of sulfur. He reaches up wordlessly, finding Bob’s fingers and wrapping around, like a child grasping for a toy. Or his mother’s touch.

“I thought you were trying to quit.”

He lets his fingertips linger for a pause over Bob’s hand. Needing the warmth. Needing to be touched. Reminding himself that Bob is really there. That he hasn’t died, that this filthy tour bus isn’t his own version of hell.

The hand releases the paper cylinder and Gerard draws the nearly gone cigarette to his lips. Chapped and peeling. He drags, eyes fluttering slightly as every pull of smoke he’s ever taken floats to the surface of his mind. Thirteen and stupid, acne and baby fat, a girl – he hates that he can’t remember her name – giggling as he coughs. Nineteen and finding out that his _baby_ brother smokes too, cigarettes slowly disappearing from the crumpled pack under his pillow. Twenty five, chain-smoking an entire pack of Marbs outside a makeshift studio with Frank, bemoaning his aching molar.

“Fuck you.”

Gerard exhales with his words; faint ghosting wisps floating around him as he crushes the filter in the ashtray. Commercials paint the scene. Diet pills meshing with Budweiser. And something about a security system. Children asleep in their beds being woken by the shattering of glass and the shrill blaring of an alarm. Evacuate or hide under the covers. Flight of Flee.

“I want to be a father.”

The words are out before Gerard can even comprehend his desire. He aches the minute they’re free, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. A flame inside him quickly flares and dies, leaving only smoldering ash, making his grape eyes sting. He should have left those words unspoken, locked them away with all the lyrics he’s never sung. All the I Love Yous he’s never said.

Gerard can feel Bob’s eyes on him, their weight pressing against the back of his skull. A tumor swelling with puss and blood, ready to burst him open. Mar his perfect plastic self with blood and gore. His teeth scrape and tear, copper blooming within his mouth, mingling with saliva and regret until he swallows. He thinks maybe it will gag him, clot in his throat and choke him. Go out like a rock star, choking on his woes.

“You’d make a good father.”

Gerard finally breaks his focus on the television; turning his head back to gaze up at Bob, blinking rapidly, salt stinging the prune surface of his eyes. And it’s like he can breathe again, his lungs bleeding, raw from the effort. If Gerard had a pen he’d compose a song, comparing Bob to Amaterasu. Or perhaps he is the deity, and Bob the cave, hiding him selfishly from the world.

He reaches for Bob’s hand, drawing it from his cropped hair and running his fingers over the calloused palm. He’s reminded of paper again and he laces their fingers, barely hinting at a grip. He would paint Bob with sable in shades of yellow ochre and flax. Gold filigree and lapis. Gerard wonders if he should speak this aloud, wonders if Bob will think him as crazy as he thinks himself. His hand moved beneath his shirt again, searching for his heartbeat, wishing he were alive.

Moments slip past him and he is only mildly aware that they have shifted, Bob resting with his back against the arm of the couch, Gerard pulled into his lap, head tucked just up under a gilded steel wool chin. He wonders when his head started throbbing, when the dull pressure behind his eyes wormed through his skull. A swelling maggot making his temples ring with discordant hymns. He can feel those strong thighs circling his thin hips. He can hear Bob’s heartbeat.

“Gerard Way a fucking dad. Your kids will be adorable little vampires, waxing poetic before they even learn their numbers. You gonna tell them all about the good old days?”

Gerard frees his hand from Bob’s, his fingers moving to tangle in the rough material of Bob’s shirt. Beneath his touch he feels life, pumping and flowing. Steady breaths and rumbling vocals. Pure and soft and _being_. He always expected Bob’s heartbeat to sound like a drum, as his brother’s sounded like a subtle bass line. Instead he hears the vocals of a soul, like the steady chanting of monks greeting the sun with prayer. Faithful. Steady. Doubtless. He can feel Bob’s wide hands on his back, the heat of living seeping through the thin nylon. He wishes he could cry.

“You can tell them when you visit. Sit them on your knees and tell them stories to embarrass their old man.”

“You’ll never be old, G.”

Gerard gasps softly, fingers griping even harder at cotton. Clinging. He turns his head to properly press his ear to Bob’s chest, grasping at the hum of blood racing like it were his own personal lifeline. It’s too bright on the bus, the fake light and fake people dancing over his dead leaf skin.

“And when you visit. When Toro and Frank visit. When my brother visits. We’ll talk and laugh and sit out on my porch, with a perfect view of a little pond. Sunset. It will be sunset then. You and the others drinking wine while I sip lime diet coke. We’ll pass a cigar around like a blunt until the stars come out. Toro will mess with Frank’s hair and Mikey’s laugh will sound just as girly and lame as it always has. We’ll share stories of our families and pass pictures of our kids around, squinting at them in the moonlight. Mikey will have to hold them up to the citronella just to see them because his eyes are failing him again, but he refuses to go back to glasses. And you…”

Gerard’s lungs fail him for the first time in his life. He sputters on a stale breath. Choking. Drowning on the weight of his own words. Bob’s hands resting on his back feel like hot iron. Smelting. Refining. Drawing out imperfections that lace his words like poison. Thank god for the fucking venom. Thank god for this life of unliving.

“Your knee will press against mine under the table like always. And I won’t ever feel lonely again.”

All is silent and still. Even the buzz of the television as a Mercedes races down a busy street. Even the hum of the bus moving beneath them, dragging them ever forward. All soundless. All null and void. His ear clings to Bob’s heartbeat as tightly as his fingers grip Bob’s shirt. Chewed off nails biting into the cotton and slicing through silkscreen. He imagines the ink stains on his fingers bleeding into the shirt, bleeding into Bob’s skin. Mingling with his blood and destroying the perfect song.

Gerard feels Bob take a breath, chest rising and falling. Slow and even. Always so steady. A hot iron hand glides back into his hair. His head lifted up from hell to glimpse the face of god. The maggot in his brain writhes and dies, the throbbing ache slowly fading. He has a single moment to wonder why he’s shaking. Why his eyes and lips and teeth sting. Why his stomach flutters and his heart shudders and start beating again.

And then lips, soft and gentle and sweet, meet his own. Pressing lightly. Hesitance married with determination, with certainty. He’s dully aware of a noise, an almost whimper in his ears, painting his cheeks sloppily with Sangría.

Gerard tries to pull away, tries to spare Bob the roughness of his lips and the toxicity of his kiss. But then he’s being opened, lips parting, a small sigh flowing from him. His dying breath. He smells rain and smoke and his eyes grow wet.

His fingers untangle. And he touches gold.


End file.
